Grace, Too

"Armed with skill and its frustration, and grace, too" (Michigan Photography)

But I can guarantee

There'll be no knock on the door

I'm total pro

That's what I'm here for

--"Grace, Too" by The Tragically Hip from their 1994 album Day for Night 

(Before we get started, allow me to send you over to YouTube where you can check out yesterday's fantastic MMB halftime performance of songs from Wicked.)

One of the most challenging things about a college football season is the lack of gameplay datapoints.  A couple of weeks into a baseball season, you wouldn't have a lot of data, but you would feel like you might have something to work with.  But just two weeks into a college football season, it's hard to draw meaningful conclusions.  However, coaching staffs have to do so because the season is so short; you cannot afford not to. You have to make adjustments, even when things are going well.

It was heartening that New Mexico went into the Rose Bowl and soundly beat a UCLA team on Friday night.  That UCLA team might be utterly dreadful, and DeShaun Foster has already been fired by Sunday morning, but seeing that New Mexico might be a better-than-average Mountain West team made me feel a little better about Michigan in Week 1.  But the concerns were still there for Week 3: how would Michigan respond to what everyone agreed was a lackluster performance in Norman, and how would Michigan play without Sherrone at the helm because of the school's self-imposed two-game suspension?  Answers would be forthcoming.

The secret rules of engagement
Are hard to endorse
When the appearance of conflict
Meets the appearance of force

The Michigan offense looked fully operational in all facets of the game yesterday.  A 10-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a Justice Haynes touchdown, a 6-play drive that ended with a textbook perfect Underwood to Morgan 32-yard touchdown pass.  A missed field goal by Zvada was somewhat troubling, but Michigan stormed right back after Central Michigan's punt with a 77-yard drive that included three "explosives," the last of which was Bryce Underwood running the ball in, to the loud approbation of the Big House crowd.  Central deserves credit for going for it on 4th and 1 on their own 34, but Michigan got the stop and immediately cashed it in two plays later on an Andrew Marsh end-around run.  Even a Bryce Underwood pick didn't dampen the mood, as in some quarters, it was like "OK, but he was throwing a deep ball, it's good to know they have that in the playbook," and it only ended in a Central Michigan field goal.  Michigan then executed a fantastic two-minute drill that covered 79 yards in less than 120 seconds and ended with a Jordan Marshall touchdown, making up for the one he had called back earlier on a penalty.  

The second half was largely academic, two touchdowns in the third on longish drives, a Michigan interception leading to a TD drive, a CMU fumble leading to a Michigan TD drive, and that was pretty much all there was.  This was an "It's hard to find things to be critical of" type of game that you want to see out of Michigan against a MAC opponent.

What it boiled down to was that Michigan fans wanted to see Bryce without training wheels ahead of next week's Big Ten opener in Lincoln.  They got it, and then some.  There were Bryce laser throws, there were Bryce rollouts and passes on a rail, there were designed runs for Mr. Underwood, and there were Bryce escapes that turned plays that were dead to rights into something, and occasionally, something more.  The defense looked much more together than it had at any point in the season, MAC caveats applied, and the team did not seem to be at a loss without Moore running the show. No one rational overreacted to last week as much as there were just general calls for doing more and doing better, and it worked, for at least one game.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 63-3 is NOT a Scorigami (63-3 was the score of 2016 Hawai'i, which means those two wins are the largest margins of victory at Michigan Stadium in the last 50 years.)
  
• 110,740 were in attendance for the game, the 88th largest crowd in Michigan Stadium history.
• Win 1,014
  
  
• Michigan moves to 5-0-0 all-time against Central Michigan University.
  
• Michigan moves to 7-1-0 all-time on September 13 (The lone loss was to Notre Dame in South Bend in 2008.)
  
  
• Michigan improves to 12-0-0 when scoring exactly 63 points.
• Michigan moves to 49-3-3 all-time when allowing 3 points to the opposition.
• Michigan won 3 games all-time by precisely 60 points, the aforementioned 63-3 games and 60-0 over Indiana in 1902.